


Strength

by benevolens



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Drug Use, F/M, Violence, mentions of - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 07:06:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8739481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benevolens/pseuds/benevolens
Summary: Another piece for my super late Sherlolly Appreciation week work. This one is for my favourite Molly Hooper moment and I chose the lab scene at the beginning of His Last Vow.You can now find me at benevolens-fics.tumblr.com





	

_High_...

  
_High_...

  
**High** as a bloody kite and whose job was it to break his disappointment to everyone? One Margaret Jane Hooper who was consequently dragged from bed to test the drug addicted, unrequited love of her life.

  
This latest bout was beyond her. In the moments between speaking to John and their arrival, all Molly could think of was how he had changed in the two year interim of his faked suicide. He'd seemed to change for the better, if not slightly saddened by the exclusivity of his best friend's time and availability.

  
(She should have gone after him, but....it wasn't her place. She's still not sure of her place.)

  
Regardless, the same Margaret Jane Hooper, is taken by surprise by the lack of communication between her and the consulting detective. She's not sure he's ever not shown up to the lab so infrequently. She'd also caught wind of him supposedly being on some important case.

  
(He usually came to her. Especially with the hard cases. Bodies or no bodies. Not even a single visit to the flat for the use of thinking space. Perhaps he'd already had too much space to think.)

  
But, maybe, he talks things over with his new girlfriend Janine, _that_ bridesmaid. Molly's gone over it in her head a million times; all the reasons those two make a handsome couple. For one, Janine, like **that** Woman (the one he knew from not her face), is the opposite of Molly Hooper. Openly sensual, gorgeous, dark haired beauty with confidence and a degree of grace that no one jumper of hers could ever provide (comfortable or not).

  
And she's tall...A good height.

  
And beautiful.

  
She wonders if he tells her that. Just how beautiful she is.

  
Molly doesnt want to think further about the things he may or may not tell her or do to her or rather with her.

  
And thankfully, she was pulled from her thoughts by the entrance of the horrid man himself. Molly couldn’t trust her tongue, nor could she rely on the state of her voice when she saw him. Ratty, baggy clothes, bloodshot eyes and the bloody scruff and dirt on his face.

  
(The scruff should be illegal. She shouldn’t be attracted to him in this state. She's angry for god sakes! He nearly tossed away his life and... Arousal should be the last thing on her mind!)

  
Wordlessly, she holds out the plastic container and points to the door, looking at her shoes all the while. The brush of his long fingers, while fleeting, send an electric charge racing up her spine. Molly directs it towards her anger and tries to focus on what she'll say. She's hardly noticed the three other people that have come into the room until he's left and begins to fidget with her equipment until John has slid the full container towards her minutes later.

  
The only sounds that fill the room are breaths (several sighs and exasperated huffs) while she works diligently to confirm and dig a larger hole for the one everyone is well aware Sherlock Holmes has already dug for himself.

  
The soft pop that is emitted from the petri dish is the final nail in Sherlock’s proverbial coffin (and thank goodness not a real one…).

  
“Well? Is he clean?” Molly hears John’s voice somewhere in the background as she rips off her gloves and rounds the table to face the World’s Biggest Consulting Idiot.

  
“Clean?” The tone of her voice does nothing to hide her growing anger. Before Molly can truly realise what she is doing, her hand whips out in front of her and delivers a slap to Sherlock’s waiting face.

  
That…that felt good.

  
He deserves this. More than this for what he has done, what he is doing.

  
So, Molly pulls back and slaps him with the other hand to even out the sting and just once more with the back of her hand to make sure the message has reached his drug addled mind.

  
The grimace on his face is at least proof he felt the pain. Physically.

  
“How dare you throw away the beautiful gift you were born with?! How dare you betray the love of your friends?! Say you’re sorry.” She wants to stomp her foot and shake him silly, but she watches as his hand comes up to cup his stinging cheek.

  
“Sorry your engagement’s over—though I’m fairly grateful for the lack of a ring.”

  
This is what he always does. Always.

“Stop it. Just…stop it.”

  
He says the most horrible thing he can to push them all away as he suffers alone. No one is allowed to penetrate the impermeable heart of Sherlock bloody Holmes.

  
At least that is what he wants to portray and Molly won’t have it. Not anymore. She briefly notes John stepping forward and is too busy staring Sherlock down while seething with anger to register much more until he looks to his phone and seems to be relieved somehow.

  
“Finally!”

  
Molly wants to slap him again.

“Finally what?” She growls softly.

  
There are other voices and suddenly Sherlock was moving towards the door.

  
“There’s every chance that my drug habit might hit the newspapers. The game is on.” Molly watches as he walks through the doors and shakes her head, looking down at her feet as he pretends once again like everything has gone back to normal.

  
She’ll show him it hasn’t.

  
The minute she gets another chance, she’ll show him it can’t go on this way.  
________________________________________  
Her chance doesn’t exactly come about. While she was the first to hear about his relapse, it seems that she isn’t privy to the moment that he has been sent to the hospital.

  
She find out after hearing two gossips in the cafeteria about a nurse complaining about the Great Detective who has been checked in several floors above their head.

  
“A nightmare, that one is.”

  
“Well, what else would you expect… But isn’t he gorgeous, Jo?”

  
Molly couldn’t remember the last time she had moved so quickly, leaving the queue, rushing up several flights of stairs and straight to the reception desk.

  
“Sherlock Holmes… Has he been admitted?” Molly huffs and puffs as she waits for the nurse to look through her files. “I’m…I’m family.” She lies (it’s not the first time she has lied for him) while bouncing from foot to foot impatiently.

  
The nurse, thankfully, doesn’t question her further and points in the direction of the room and announces the number.

  
In a daze, Molly hurries down the hall and skids to a stop at the door of his room. One look inside at him covered in wires, hair mussed and in a hospital gown has Molly covering her mouth and pivoting to press her back against a wall as her eyes closed.

  
(How could he? How could he do this to her? To John? To everyone who loves him? Why? _Why_?)

  
She glances in again to make sure he is asleep and tiptoes in to look at his chart while taking shallow breaths. There is some sort of relief when she sees the cause is not an overdose, but a whole new sinking feeling hits at the realisation that he was shot. Replacing the chart quietly, she rushes away from the room and him just as fast as she had moved to come to him.

  
(Doesn’t he care? Doesn’t he care at all? He… He does care. What’s happened this time? What is happening with him? Why hasn’t he said anything? Didn’t she count? Didn’t she matter…the most?)

  
Right then, Molly can't deal with all the questions, with the reality of him almost losing his life twice and god knows how many more times when she has worked so hard to keep him alive all this time.

  
For now, she had to look at what was best for her.

  
Molly Hooper had to put Sherlock Holmes aside.

  
(Painful as it was. As much as she loves him.)  
________________________________________  
She’s been putting on a cheery disposition as if it were just a costume and every day, Molly would take it off as soon as she was out of the range of another human being.

  
The day John shows up frantically questioning her while she’s sat down to a much deserved cup of coffee, Molly just finds herself fighting a smile.

  
“He was in the hospital? Gun shot?” She asks, features somewhat neutral. He’s just assumed she knew. Like John had told her, but no one that should have said anything had. This, though, was anger best kept for another occasion.

  
“And now he’s escaped?...Do I know anywhere he might go?...You’ve looked in all of those places?... There is my flat. Just the spare bedroom. Well…my bedroom. We agreed he needs the space.” She smiles bitterly, barely concealing her new source of anger and remembering their agreement. She would help shield Sherlock from his demons, fight them off one night at a time if he needed. But he hasn’t used that space in ages. Close to two and a half years now.

  
Molly doubts she will find him there tonight.

  
Molly hopes, as John retreats, that she won’t find him there tonight.

  
If Molly does, she doesn’t know what she’ll do to him.


End file.
